What's Not: Outgoing voice is a little muffed with the phone in the case.

PowerSkin makes battery cases for major brands including Apple, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and BlackBerry. Most of these battery cases double the battery life of the intended device and it's a convenient way to add battery run times without interrupting the usage of your phone. The PowerSkin battery case for the HTC Sensation adds only 2.8 ounces to the device but gives you up to 6 hours of extra talk time.

Design

The PowerSkin for HTC Sensation has a similar form factor as other PowerSkin battery cases: a form fitting case that protects your phone with a large, flat battery built into the back of the case. The PowerSkin for HTC Sensation has a built-in charging connector that plugs into the Sensation?s charging port on the side. To accommodate the charging connector and a short wire, the case has a small bump on the side. The battery portion of the case on the back is quite hard and can protect your phone from serious bumps and pokes, but the sides of the case are soft which makes it very easy to put the case on or take it off of the phone. The battery connector is well placed, and it?s easy to connect it to the phone and put the phone in the case.

The PowerSkin for HTC Sensation battery case feels soft in hand and is made with 100% recycled soft silicone rubber. Each PowerSkin battery case is made to fit the device they work with and has cutouts specifically designed for that device. The PowerSkin for HTC Sensation has a long cutout on the back to give you access to Sensation?s rear camera, dual flash and the speaker. The case also leaves out the mic next to the speaker, and carves out two small holes to let the sound into the other two microphones above and below the camera lens. Nice! The PowerSkin has an additional cutout for the audio out jack on top of the phone and puts the power button and side volume buttons under silicone cover.

The PowerSkin for HTC Sensation has two more cutouts on the bottom. If you own an HTC Sensation you know how many mic holes this phone has. The PowerSkin battery case aims to accommodate them all. There is one more cutout for the bottom mic, and for the two microphones on the back that are near the bottom of the phone, the case has a channel cutout along with a cutout hole to let the sound through. Even with all these mic hole cutouts, the outgoing voice is still slightly muffed in the case. The case covers very little on the front, leaving out all touch buttons on the bottom, and the earpiece, front camera and sensor on top free for access.

Features

The PowerSkin for HTC Sensation has a built-in Lithium Polymer battery that?s 1500mAh in capacity. Combine that with Sensation?s 1540mAh battery, you?ve a long battery run time that comes in handy during long flights or for watching movies. The PowerSkin has smart battery technology with XPAL PowerSafe circuitry. When you plug your phone into the battery, it will start charging the phone automatically. You can stop the charging process by pressing and holding the on/off button on the back of the battery case. When the PowerSkin is active, the battery case will drain its own battery first before draining phone?s battery for usage; and when you charge your phone with the PowerSkin case on, the battery case will let your phone charge first.

The PowerSkin comes with a short USB/micro USB cable, and you can use your phone?s charger to charge the battery case and your phone via the side charging port on the PowerSkin. The battery case takes a few hours to fully charge via computer, and the four LED lights on the back indicate the battery power level by 25% increment. The PowerSkin battery case has input and output rate of 5V, 1A; and you can use most any mobile AC charger with USB adapter to charge the battery case.

Conclusion

If you are looking to double your phone?s run time without taking the battery out and reboot the phone, the PowerSkin battery case is a compelling solution for some extra power on the go. The battery case is protective and has on/off button so that you don?t wear out the battery or the LED light on the phone. The smart battery technology on the PowerSkin provides safety and smart charging, and the LED lights let you know how much power the battery case has left. The outgoing voice sounds a bit muffed while in the case, mainly due to the sensitive mics on the phone.